Speaker. I firmly believe that the linguistic minority groups in our Nation must learn English if they are to become fully integrated into American society. Yet while few would deny that mastery of the English language is vital to our Nations immigrants becoming full and participating members of society. official policies. such as those which recognize other languages as the accepted language of the ballot box. may actually impede the learning of English. It is time for the Federal Government to stop sending conflicting signals to the nonEnglishspeaking people in America. U.S. naturalization laws. for example. state that a person must "read. write. and speak English in ordinary usage" to become a U.S. citizen. Our laws. however. also mandate that immigrants who vote. and thus exercise the highest privilege of U.S. citizenship. must be provided with ballots in their native language. Mr. Speaker. we must not promote the segregation of our Nations immigrants by legislating bilingual programs which enhance the dissimilarities between immigrants and the mainstream of American life. Rather. we must encourage those who wish to become contributing members of American society to learn the language of their new homeland. Abolishing the use of bilingual ballots in America is an important step toward reversing one of the many Governmentsanctioned programs which have served to discourage proficiency in English and to impede the full integration of immigrants into American society. I therefore applaud the voters of San Francisco for saying a strong "no" to the bilingual ballot and encourage my colleagues in Congress to do likewise.
Keywords matched
naturalization immigrants